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Dec 16, 2009 0

Seattle, WA – 12/16/09 – Town Hall – Jennifer Burns

Who
Jennifer Burns
When
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
7:30pm - $5 - All Ages Buy Tickets
Where
Town Hall (map)
1119 Eighth Avenue
Seattle, WA, USA 98101

Town Hall is Seattle's community culture center located in the historic First Hill neighborhood, on the edge of downtown. Town Hall showcases the community's cultural energy with diverse music, arts and humanities, civic discourse, and world culture programming. Housed in an historic Roman-revival-style building on the corner of 8th and Seneca, Town Hall opened in March 1999. Local, national and international programs and performances are scheduled year-round in the Great Hall and Downstairs at Town Hall. Please visit our calendar of events for a current listing of public events. Town Hall's name recalls town-meeting democracy and is emphasized by the intimate, curved, amphitheater-style seating of the Great Hall. Town Hall is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and relies on rentals, membership, volunteers, and fundraising to sustain its many activities. Town Hall is fully accessible. Assisted listening devices are available for events in the Great Hall upon request.

Other Info
University of Virginia historian Jennifer Burns this evening discusses her highly-praised new biography of novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford University Press). "Jennifer Burns' thoroughly engaging biography of writer, philosopher, and all-around controversial figure Rand delves deeply into both Rand's life and her fervent devotion to capitalism and individualism ... Burns' clear, crisp writing and piercing insights into Rand and her motivations make this eminently readable biography a must-read not only for Rand devotees but for anyone interested in the merging of literature and politics." - Booklist.

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Dec 3, 2009 0

Seattle, WA – 12/03/09 – Elliott Bay Book Company – Brad Matsen

Who
Brad Matsen
When
Thursday, December 3, 2009
7:00pm - All Ages
Where
Elliott Bay Book Company (map)
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle, WA, USA 98122

The Elliott Bay Book Company is Seattle's leading independent bookstore and hosts an incredible reading series. Elliott Bay moved from it's location in Seattle's Pioneer Square (a historic district that is known as the source of the term "Skid Road") in April 2010. On the new location, Elliott Bay Book Company says,

"Be assured--the new place will have its own distinct charms, many of them very similar to what people have known and enjoyed about our Pioneer Square home. Everyone that we know of who's had a sneak peek as construction has ensued has gone 'wow' in appreciation and anticipation."
Other Info
Author of numerous books on marine life and exploration—Titanic's Last Secrets, Descent, Planet Ocean, and Ray Troll's Shocking Fish Tales among them—Brad Matsen makes this welcome Elliott Bay return from his Vashon Island home to talk about his newest, Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King (Pantheon). This biography of the late French underwater explorer and television host is receiving attention far, wide .... and deep. "Like the subject of this book, Brad Matsen has found his true milieu: the deep ocean. Now he brings his very special brilliance to illuminate the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau. He has done a masterful job in this much-needed, revealing biography of the ocean's most illustrious adventurer, filmmaker, conservationist, and advocate." - Richard Ellis.

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Dec 1, 2009 0

Seattle, WA – 12/01/09 – Town Hall – Jonathan Meacham

Who
Jonathan Meacham
When
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
7:30pm - $5 - All Ages Buy Tickets
Where
Town Hall (map)
1119 Eighth Avenue
Seattle, WA, USA 98101

Town Hall is Seattle's community culture center located in the historic First Hill neighborhood, on the edge of downtown. Town Hall showcases the community's cultural energy with diverse music, arts and humanities, civic discourse, and world culture programming. Housed in an historic Roman-revival-style building on the corner of 8th and Seneca, Town Hall opened in March 1999. Local, national and international programs and performances are scheduled year-round in the Great Hall and Downstairs at Town Hall. Please visit our calendar of events for a current listing of public events. Town Hall's name recalls town-meeting democracy and is emphasized by the intimate, curved, amphitheater-style seating of the Great Hall. Town Hall is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and relies on rentals, membership, volunteers, and fundraising to sustain its many activities. Town Hall is fully accessible. Assisted listening devices are available for events in the Great Hall upon request.

Other Info
Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

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Nov 16, 2009 0

Seattle, WA – 11/16/09 – Elliott Bay Book Company – Carol Sklenicka

Who
Carol Sklenicka
When
Monday, November 16, 2009
7:00pm - All Ages
Where
Elliott Bay Book Company (map)
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle, WA, USA 98122

The Elliott Bay Book Company is Seattle's leading independent bookstore and hosts an incredible reading series. Elliott Bay moved from it's location in Seattle's Pioneer Square (a historic district that is known as the source of the term "Skid Road") in April 2010. On the new location, Elliott Bay Book Company says,

"Be assured--the new place will have its own distinct charms, many of them very similar to what people have known and enjoyed about our Pioneer Square home. Everyone that we know of who's had a sneak peek as construction has ensued has gone 'wow' in appreciation and anticipation."
Other Info
Many years in the making, from meticulous research, fieldwork, and interviews, to writing, Carol Sklenicka's Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life (Scribner) is the first, major, biographical work on the too-brief life and times of one of this country's great writers. It's a story lived and worked out in this region—to a considerable degree—from Ray Carver's childhood years in Yakima, on through to his last years, including his death in Port Angeles in August 1988. "A rich portrait of a master of the American short story. The life of Raymond Carver (1938 - 1988) hews closely to a heroic arc: a hardscrabble childhood, a noble struggle for success, a fall from grace, and ultimate redemption. But Sklenicka wisely avoids hagiography, sticking to the facings while astutely connecting real-life details to Carver's stories and poems ... Sklenicka spoke with nearly everyone in Carver's orbit, making the book a kind of history of American fiction in the '70s and '80s, capturing the crucial writers and sea changes in the publishing industry that made Carver such a powerful influence on writers today. The epic biography that Carver deserves." - Kirkus Reviews.

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